Is there life in outer space? What’s the meaning of life? Is it the letter
s or c that is silent in the word ‘scent’? Great mysteries of life!

Fortunately, we have the answer to at least one of them.

Over its long and checkered history spanning 600 years, the word scent has
changed its appearance more readily than a chameleon getting ready for a
party. It has appeared as “sent” and “cent”, among other forms. In Taming
of the Shrew, Shakespeare has a huntsman say that his hound “pick’d out
the dullest sent.”

That still doesn’t tell us the answer. Well, etymology to the rescue.
The word scent comes to us from Latin sentire (to feel) which became
French sentir (to smell), before making its way to English.

So why this hotchpotch of spelling? To understand this we have to realize
that language was spoken long before writing came on the scene.

Few people were literate. When it came to writing, any spelling (sent/cent/scent/etc.)
was good as long as it sounded right. Shakespeare spelled his name
every which way -- the plaque on his tomb spells it as “Shakspeare”.

Eventually spelling became standardized. Among many competing spellings,
one took scepter as the official spelling of the word, not necessarily
because it was more virtuous than the rest.

This week we’ll see a few more words with silent letters.

knavery

PRONUNCIATION:

(NAY-vuh-ree, NAYV-ree)

MEANING:

noun: Dishonest dealing or an instance of this.

ETYMOLOGY:

From knave, from Old English cnafa (boy, servant). Earliest documented use: 1528.

USAGE:

“Each nation is fighting a righteous war, brought about by the intolerable
knavery of the other.”
Kenneth Roberts; Boon Island; Doubleday; 1956.

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted
and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out
soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes
may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.
-Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (4 Jul 1804-1864)